Kansas Speaker Cites Psalm Praying for Death of President Obama

A popular conservative meme after President Obama’s election were bumper stickers issuing a “tongue-in-cheek” call to pray for the President, referencing Psalm 109 in the Bible, which actually is a prayer for the death of a leader.

The psalm reads in part:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

Now the Speaker of the Kansas House has come under fire for forwarding this same prayer around in a personal email. When the Psalm 109 email was discovered, Speaker Mike O’Neal was already facing backlash for a racist email he sent describing First Lady Michelle Obama as “Mrs. YoMama” and making fun of her appearance when a second email including the prayer was unearthed. O’Neal added his own endorsement to the Psalm:

At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president!” O’Neal wrote. “Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!

To send a clear rejection of this kind of exploitation of faith in service of hateful political attacks, Faithful America launched a petition calling on Speaker O’Neal to resign. The petition has already garnered over 5,00013,00018,000 25,000 signatures.

Speaker O’Neal’s office refuses to even apologize for the email, demurring that he only was referencing verse 8 of the Psalm to call for an end to President’s days in office. But as Rockford Register Star columnist Pat Cunningham explained to a reader attempting this same defense, that’s a poor excuse:

You say that verse 8 of Psalm 109, as applied to President Obama, does not suggest a wish for his death. But the first five words of verse 8 are: “Let his days be few.” And verse 9 says: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

The clear implication is not changed by the intervening words: “And let another take his office.”

You suggest yourself that scripture should not be “taken out of context.” Well, the context of Psalm 109 is a wish for someone’s death. As O’Neal says himself: “Look it up — it is word for word!”

Does he expect that anyone who looks up Psalm 109 is going to isolate the second half of verse 8 from the rest of that Psalm?

Speaker O’Neal should know better than to use the Bible to joke around with implicit threats to the President’s life and well-being. His actions run counter to his office and basic religious and American values.

Update: In under 24 hours the Faithful America petition has already garnered over 13,000 signatures and counting.

Update II: As of Friday at 2:15pm the petition is up to 18,000 signatures.

Update III: As of Wednesday, 1/18 at noon, the petition has over 25,000 signatures.

17 Responses to “Kansas Speaker Cites Psalm Praying for Death of President Obama”

I guess that Speaker O’Neal is a purported Christian. He should keep in mind Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies. President Obama is not even his enemy. He is a person with whom the Speaker disagrees.His prayer that Mrs. Obama and their daughters be left widowed, orphaned and destitute flies in the face of all Christ teaches. I say God bless the First Family and forgive O’Neal for his intemperance.

Yes!!! Forgive them Father; for they not what they do.Hatred is the language of the poor, the ignorant and the wretched of the earth. That is where they live; that is where they die. Bless his pitiful heart.

It’s interesting how conservative Christians are okay with taking humorous Bible quotes out of context when it suits their own purposes, but not when anyone else does it. Check out my post on this topic at my Bible Funmentionables blog: http://wp.me/p27JK1-12 Thanks!

I had always thought it was customary for Christians to pray for the leaders of their governments–not that these people prosper personally, but that they make wise decisions in their leadership offices. It would seem to me that the more vigorously you disagree with the political philosophy of a President, the more vigorously you would pray that he govern wisely, since you would be pretty sure he would never get there without Divine help. But it’s okay to pray for miracles, no matter how unlikely they might seem to us.

God don’t like ugly and what goes around comes around, his day will come. Let’s see what God has in store for him, he should read some verses about his wickedness, oh so wicked. What is this world comimg to when it allow this wicked man to hold any office in this country, sad.

Those of us who care about Christianity have reason for great concern. The leadership has allowed its message to be hijacked by political concerns, and few voices are raised in opposition. The Governor who has the record for the most executions is the one who holds a prayer meeting to help the misguided others. The Catholic church is weakened by sexual corruption and is ineffective or unwilling to aggressively defend the concept of a Just War with respect to Iraq. White evangelical protestants are the biggest supporters of torture in the US (Pew polling) and God is used as a prop for Presidential candidates. The best known televangelist in the nation broadcasts that God spoke to him, let him know the current President is bad for the country, told him who was going to get elected, and then told him not to tell us.

Until this nonsense is purged, rejection of Christianity and all faiths will continue in America.

The speaker can forward all the bumper stickers he wants, now and after November 6, 2012 when President Obama utterly destroys his challenger at the polls. Watch for more racist sore loser antics as the election gets closer.

Whenever a religion–ANY religion–is selfishly reworked, reedited, reinterpreted and repackaged for political purposes, the religion will always become a strange abomination of itself. I am hopeful that True Christians follow the path of Jesus–in spite of this horrific rhetoric– and are committed to compassion toward others, regardless of race, creed, gender, or condition. Sadly, it has come to the reality that if Jesus were to walk the earth today, the Kansas Speaker and those like him would be the first people to spit in his face…or worse, incite his execution. Now how Ironic is that?!

You know, I’ve always been an independent voter. I don’t belong to any political party. I always vote for candidates, not parties. However, the next election will be an exception. The more I listen to Republicans, and the more I watch their antics and their hypocrisy, the more I want them out of office. This O’Neal guy is the frosting on the cake when it comes to pathetic examples of leadership.

I’ll be looking for any reason I can find to vote for the Democratic candidates on my ballot. There may be some that I can’t bring myself to vote for, but I’m certain that the Dems will be heavily favored in my voting.

I WAS a Republican. I did not join the GOP to deal with this sort of foolishness. I’m not prepared to join the Dems either, but cannot stay with a party that won’t oust a member who practically loses his mind like this. This is treason! Guess I’ll have to be an independent.